Having paid his respects to King Forday, Richard Lander, leaving his brother and his men at the town, set off, in King Boy's canoe, to go sixty miles down the river to the brig. His feelings of delight may be imagined when he had ocular evidence that he had at length succeeded in tracing the mysterious Niger down to the ocean, by seeing before him two vessels, one the Spanish slaver, the other the English brig on board which he fully expected to receive the assistance he so greatly required. To his utter surprise and consternation, on going on board, Captain Lake, though almost himself at death's door from fever, flatly refused to give him a single thing. By his language and behaviour he showed himself to be a greater savage than the ignorant blacks among whom Lander had been travelling. Lander in vain expostulated with the captain; fearful oaths and flat refusals were the only answers he made. At last, when Lander suggested that he had five men, who might be useful in working his vessel out of the river, he softened a little, and gave him a change of linen and some provisions for his brother. King Boy was ultimately induced to go back to bring John Lander and the rest of the men, on Richard's reiterated promise that he would at some time or other obtain the goods they had promised him. He presented him also with some silver bracelets, which they had before overlooked, and a native sword. These articles Boy accepted, but when John Lander offered him his watch it was refused with disdain, the savage not knowing its value. The captain of the brig had in the meantime loaded his guns and got his arms ready, and when Boy came up to him once more, to demand the bars which had been promised, he replied, in a voice of thunder: "I no will!" As the pilot, to whom the captain had also refused to pay his demand, could not be trusted to take the brig out, she narrowly escaped shipwreck on the bar, but happily at length getting clear of the river, she steered a course for Fernando Po, where the travellers landed. Hence they sailed for Rio de Janeiro, which they reached on the 16th of March, and from that port obtained a passage on board the "William Harris" to England, which they reached safely on the 10th of June. Thus, with very humble means, by the energy and courage of two unpretending men, was the long-disputed problem of the course of the Niger at length completely solved. Besides the payment which the Government had promised to Richard Lander, he received a premium of fifty guineas, placed at the disposal of the Royal Geographical Society by the king, and his brother John obtained employment under Government suitable to his abilities. CHAPTER TEN. TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF DR. BARTH IN NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA, 1849.